If you've ever been to a movie involving two brothers separated at birth,
one of whom ends up as a criminal and the other a police officer, you
already know about today's word. Anagnorisis is the point near the end of
the movie where the brothers face each other, notice similar lockets in
other's necks (that their mother gave them at their birth) and discover that
they are twins, drop their guns, and hug each other tightly.

Anagnorisis was originally the critical moment in a Greek tragedy, usually
accompanied by a peripeteia (reversal), leading to the denouement of a
story. An example is when Oedipus recognizes that the woman he is married
to (Jocasta) is really his mother. Aristotle discussed it at length in his
Poetics.
He talked
about many different kinds of such recognitions, e.g. by memory, by
reasoning, etc. The worst, according to him, is recognition by signs,
such as scars, birthmarks, tokens, etc. (including lockets!)

"... his latest book, 'Blinded by the Right,' in which he (David Brock)
confesses that everything he wrote earlier in his career as a
conservative -- before his anagnorisis as a born-again liberal -- was
a lie."
Kathleen Parker; Let's Put Right-wing Conspiracy Issue to Rest;
The Grand Rapids Press (Michigan); Mar 21, 2002.

This week's theme: miscellaneous words.

X-Bonus

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